Two members of the Barbaro clan were arrested in Palermo ,Giuseppe Barbaro, 43 years old and Pasquale Barbaro, 33, both from Platì also arrested Rocco Pizzinga, 49 years old from Casignana.

All three appear to be under investigation for association aimed at drug trafficking.

They would be the representatives of the Calabrian family, involved in the management of drug trafficking in the province of Reggio Calabria and linked by kinship ties with leading exponents of the 'ndrina di San Luca, which allegedly guaranteed the systematic supply of large quantities of drugs to the criminal group, with an operational base in the Sicilian capital, which would have been directed by two brothers from Palermo, sons of a historic exponent of the Villagrazia/Santa Maria di Gesù mafia district.

'Ndrangheta, the new repentant from Vibonese Pasquale Megna challenges the Mancuso clan: "They have no honor"
The collaboration of the 58-year-old from Nicotera Marina opens up scenarios that were unthinkable just a few months ago. The challenge of him the powerful Limbadi clan: «I will dedicate my life to fighting the mafias»

of editorial staff April 22, 2023 07:30

Challenge the Mancusos , claims to know the secrets of the powerful 'Ndrangheta family of Limbadi, talks about murders. The new collaborator of justice Pasquale Megna promises to do damage to the clan that has been dictating law in the Vibonese area and beyond for decades, claiming that he wants to change his life, especially for his children.

«I am able to report murders, attempted murders and many other things, most of which pertain to 'Ndrangheta events. The Mancusos don't even know where honor belongs .' These are his words, peremptory, recorded by the investigators in his first deposition.

A collaboration that opens up scenarios that were decidedly unthinkable until a few months ago. Pasquale Megna , 58 years old from Nicotera Marina, was arrested in the night between 8 and 9 January in the Feudotto district of Vibo Valentia after going into hiding on 2 December 2022 because he was accused of the murder of Giuseppe Muzzopappa, shot dead on the evening of November 26 last year not far from the Nicotera seafront.

Pasquale Megna's father, Assunto Natale Megna, is the brother-in-law of the life sentenced boss Pantaleone Mancuso, alias Scarpuni . Other parental ties Pasquale Megna - fish merchant - also has with the boss Francesco Mancuso , known as "Tobacco".

Good article about the feuds within the Mancusos..

'Ndrangheta, investigations reveal: "Even sectors of the Mancuso family wanted boss Scarpuni dead"

https://www.lacnews24.it/cronaca/nd...antaleone-mancuso-detto-scarpuni_162596/

Cosimo Commisso known as "The Quail" acquitted in the "Core business" " trial
March 27, 2023

https://www.rivieraweb.it/cosimo-commisso-detto-u-quaghia-assolto-nel-processo-core-bussines/

Lombardo: «La massoneria e la “Cosa unica”. Cos’è diventata la ‘Ndrangheta»

https://www.corrieredellacalabria.i...cosa-unica-cose-diventata-la-ndrangheta/


Lombardo continues, «we find the statements of a very faithful collaborator of justice of the Papalia of Platì. And you know that Platì and Sinopoli mean Australia, Siderno means Canada and North America, Africo means South America. This collaborator of justice is asked for a whole series of specifications on the role of the Papalias, this large family which, as you know, is hegemonic in Lombardy, because Antonio Papalia was already the head of Lombardy in the 90s. (…) The collaborator says: Micu Papalia, who is the big boss of everything, be careful, he is not only the head of the family, but he is the national summit ». (

He's actually Sicilian.Gaetano Fidanzati jr, grandson of his namesake one of the most powerful bosses in Palermo and heavily involved in drug trafficking. He was the protagonist of the alliances between the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the American Cosa Nostra, the Neapolitan Camorra and the Colombian drug cartels. Fidanzati died in 2013.

CJNG is one of the darlings of the Italian mafia: Óscar Balderas
The journalist specializing in organized crime recounted the relationship between the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel and the 'Ndrangheta.
This directly affects Mexico.

By Luis Cardenas
Written in INTERVIEWS on 4/26/2023 10:24 a.m.
RELATED AUDIO
Collaboration with Oscar Balderas
In his collaboration with Luis Cárdenas for the First Broadcast of MVS Noticias, Óscar Balderas , a journalist specializing in organized crime, spoke about the Italian mafia , the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel ( CJNG ) and cocaine.

In his capsule presented this Wednesday, the reporter said that this story begins with a man who has a double life , who by day is an employee at the Port of Gioia Tauro in Italy and by night is a member of the 'Ndrangheta.

He was in charge of altering the X-ray detectors when drug ships arrived at the Calabrian port. However, the Italian Financial Guard stopped him.

The Italian Finance Guard found dozens of packages with a total of 2,000 kilos of cocaine on April 17, 2023. Credit: EFE

In all this matter, Mexico was involved , since, according to information obtained by Óscar Balderas for MVS Noticias , among the containers there was a “strange stamp” with the silhouette of a rooster.

That symbol represents the "Lord of the Roosters" , that is, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes , so they were shipments from the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel.

Despite this, this criminal organization is not the main objective of the United States government , which, through the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), offers a reward of 10 million dollars in exchange for information leading to the capture of " Los Chapitos " , of the Sinaloa Cartel.

“What is interesting is how the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel has displaced historical groups such as the Sinaloa Cartel,” the journalist commented. "There is already a report that they are the darlings of 'Ndrangheta, the Italian mafia."

The foregoing has a direct impact on Mexico, where three days ago there was a confrontation in Jalisco. There a sophisticated drone used by organized crime was observed.

"(It was seen) a drone that is directing bombs, is dropping bombs on civilians, but it was also doing it with a kind of infrared that allowed us to know how many people were in the vehicle, we had not seen that," said the head of Nación Criminal .

The cause of this situation, according to Balderas, is that "they are in millionaire businesses that control the planet's drugs and when you control the drugs, you control the weapons."

Óscar Balderas concluded in this regard that the CJNG "has not worried about getting into the fentanyl business ," which is why the United States "is hard and hard against the Sinaloa Cartel."

The 'Ndrangheta boss Pasquale Bonavota was arrested, he was among the most dangerous fugitives

https://www.agenzianova.com/en/news...vota-era-tra-i-latitanti-piu-pericolosi/

I don't really see Mafia fugitives staying on the run for that long anymore, I think Messina Denaro was the last of the great fugitives. Decades-long runs are over.

i'm agree, but there is still the Cosa Nostra boss Giovanni Motisi, fugitive since 1998

I'm more or less talking about future ones rather than a few who are left.

'Ndrangheta, the "primroses" found by investigators around the world
by Arcangelo Badolati — April 28, 2023


International airports, naval ports, patrician palaces in the heart of European cities, South American and Caribbean luxury resorts, Portuguese villas overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, farms in the Colombian plains, penthouses in North American skyscrapers: the story of the capture of Calabrian "primroses" seems imagined by Ian Fleming.
Over the past twenty years, fugitives from the 'Ndrangheta have in fact been chased around the world: from Indonesia to Canada, via Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, France, Colombia and Argentina. To find them, the Italian police have followed complex paths, spying on Facebook and Istagram; intercepting satellite phones and cash flows by carrying out a constant work of connection with the police forces of all continents.
Peppino Piromalli historic boss of the local mafia "it's the hardest thing!". He knew it well: it was a carabinieri captain, Gilberto Murgia , who tracked him down in his hiding place back in the 80s, after months and months of strenuous searches, endless tailings and exhausting stakeouts carried out in the heart of the almost inviolable Piana di Gioia Tauro. The "picciotteria" has always known how to protect its heads well and for a long time in the past: just think that the man who remained in hiding more than anyone else in Italy was Michelangelo Franconieri , from Rizziconi, who remained a "bird of the woods" for 43 years, from 1958 to 2001.
Now, however, things have changed: the "hunters" of the state have more means and, thanks to the "I-Can" project wanted by the deputy chief of police, Vittorio Rizzi, greater possibilities for coordination and exchange of information with the investigative units of the other Villages.
The change of pace is proved by a series of events: 43 wanted men handcuffed in three years. Names and surnames chase each other in the Viminale list. To retrace it, let's start with Antonio Strangio , 32, from San Luca, a fugitive for seven years, who ended up in handcuffs in Bali, Indonesia, on February 3 last. He was returning to Australia, where he had been living since 2016, after an exotic vacation. He is suspected of drug trafficking.
In Saint Etienne, on the other hand, a few hours earlier the last great fugitive from Upper Calabria had ended up in handcuffs, Edgardo Greco , a multiple murderer and life sentence from Cosenza who had been in hiding since October 2006. He lived as a cook in a restaurant-pizzeria owned by of a Sicilian. As a young man he had become famous for having tried to kill the Bruttian boss Franco Pino in prison ; his fame had then grown with his participation, in 1991, in the assassination of brothers Stefano and Giuseppe Bartolomeo .
2022 was a particularly lucky year in the search for fugitives. In Buenos Aires, in October, Carmine Alfonso Maiorano was identified and handcuffed, 68 years old, from Cassano, under investigation for international drug trafficking and untraceable since 2015. The sixty-eight year old was located thanks to the excessive use he made of Facebook, using false profiles. He used a fictitious identity but chatted with old "companies" and sybaritic friends and the circumstance cost him his arrest.
On the other side of the world and a stone's throw from us, again last year, two more shots by the police forces: in fact, Vittorio Raso was arrested in Spain (in Castelfidelis in June 2022) originally from Piana di Gioia but residing in the province of Turin and Mario Palamara(Fuengirola - Malaga October 2022) originally from Melito Porto Salvo. Raso, a few months later, decided to collaborate with the Italian investigating judiciary by revealing the names and functions of all the narcos involved in the great cocaine tour destined to flood the Piedmontese squares.
In March of the previous year, in Portugal, the fugitive of Francesco Pelle, known as "Ciccio Pakistan" , a life sentence from San Luca involved in the feud which culminated in the Duisburg massacre, had ended. And again in 2021, but in the homeland of Samba, Rocco Morabito, known as "Tamunga" , from Africo,
was recaptured first in Uruguay in 2017 and, after a sensational escape from Montevideo prison, resumed in Brazil. In carioca land they had finished with freedom as wellVincenzo Macrì , from Siderno, son of "Don Antonio", blocked in 2017 in the San Paolo airport as he was about to board a flight to Caracas; and Nicola Assisi, drug trafficker from Grimaldi (Cosenza) active in Piedmont, discovered in a residence in Praia Grande along the coast of San Paolo, in July 2019. With him was his son, Patrick, an irreplaceable companion on the run "golden", set to guard a room full of money. All "grana" earned with drugs.

I already suspected they were on the trail of Bonavota after the arrest in Canada and extradiction in March of Domenico Cugliari, the accountant, second in power only to Pasquale Bonavota. The clan is very wealthy because of their interests in gambling and online betting. They also have exponents in Piedmont and Rome.

Their allies include: Anello, Lo Bianco, Mancuso, Alvaro, Morabito, Ursino, Commisso, Aquino, Mollica, Piscopisani.

THE NEW COLLABORATOR?
In Cosenza, the banner and the possible repentance of Roberto Porcaro
It appeared this morning in the city of the bruzi. The message addressed to the former "dolphin" of Francesco Patitucci and considered "regent" of the "Italians"
Posted on: 04/28/2023 – 13:17

COSENZA « Infamous penitent porcaro ». It is the eloquent text of a banner that appeared this morning in Cosenza. The authors are unknown, but the message addressed to Roberto Porcaro, former "dolphin" of the boss Francesco Patitucci and considered the alleged "regent" of the "Italian" clan, is clear. Porcaro, involved in the "Reset" investigation coordinated by the Catanzaro DDA led by Nicola Gratteri, would have decided to take the plunge and tell the anti-mafia magistrates what he knew about him. A week ago, Porcaro would have left the prison cell where he was imprisoned. The transfer is for many the clear signal of a possible collaboration.

" Who's in charge in Cosenza today?" Robertino Porcaro ". It was December 18, 2018 when the then deputy prosecutor of the DDA of Catanzaro Camillo Falvo (today chief prosecutor in Vibo Valentia) turns to Anna Palmieri , wife of Celestino Abbruzzese alias "Micetto" (belonging to the "Banana" family), asking for enlightenment on the figure of Roberto Porcaro. The answer of the collaborator of justice is lapidary. " The leaf doesn't move if they don't want it ," says Palmieri. «Who are they?», presses Falvo. «My brother-in-law Luigi and Robertino Porcaro». The first is the referent for the "Gypsies", the second for the "Italians".

From Patitucci's dolphin to boss
An influential, powerful man, head of one of the most important groups of the "Sistema Cosenza", at least until his arrest. Roberto Porcaro was not born a boss, but reached the top of the criminal association without too many obstacles and in a relatively short time.

Full article: https://www.corrieredellacalabria.i...possibile-pentimento-di-roberto-porcaro/

How were the meetings between the brother-in-law of "El Mencho" and a boss of the Italian mafia in Uruguay
Gerardo González Valencia was arrested in the South American country in 2016 and extradited to the US in 2020, however, his presence in one of the Uruguayan prisons exposed alleged links of corruption between prison authorities


Said investigations carried out by Uruguayan authorities revealed not only that Rocco Morabito's escape had been warned in a police report dated June 2018, but also that the leader of the Calabrian mafia held meetings with Gerardo González Valencia, brother-in-law of "El Mencho" and member of Los Cuinis.

https://www.infobae.com/mexico/2023...un-jefe-de-la-mafia-italiana-en-uruguay/

More than 100 arrested in European swoop on 'Ndrangheta crime group
Reuters

FRANKFURT, May 3 (Reuters) - German and Italian police have arrested more than 100 people on Wednesday in a crackdown on the Italian 'Ndrangheta organised crime group, German public prosecutors and police in the two countries said.

The suspects are accused of money laundering, criminal tax evasion, fraud and the smuggling of drugs, mafia-type criminal association, and the possession and trafficking of weapons.

The arrests were part of a coordinated investigation by Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, German authorities said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...robe-italian-organised-crime-2023-05-03/

Cosenza, killed by mistake with a Kalashnikov: the assassins wanted to hit her husband

https://www.unionesarda.it/en/italy/woman-shot-dead-39-ndrangheta-crime-hypothesis-d1okt8c9

132 ‘Ndrangheta mafia members arrested after investigation by Belgium Italy and Germany

https://www.ilmetropolitano.it/2023...estigation-by-belgium-italy-and-germany/

Police detain 130 in raids across Europe targeting ‘Ndrangheta mafia

Raids form part of three-year investigation into crime syndicate controlling cocaine flow into Europe


Police have arrested more than 130 people in coordinated raids in half a dozen European countries as part of a crackdown targeting the Italian ’Ndrangheta organised crime syndicate, prosecutors and police have said.

The suspects are mostly accused of money laundering, criminal tax evasion, fraud, drug possession, production and smuggling, mafia-type criminal association and the possession and trafficking of weapons, authorities in Germany said on Wednesday.

Carabinieri officers in Italy made 108 arrests across the country after an investigation based in the southern region of Calabria, the historic base of the ’Ndrangheta, which has overtaken Sicily’s Cosa Nostra as Italy’s most powerful and wealthy mafia and controls the bulk of the cocaine flow into Europe. Eighty-five of those arrested were already in jail.


A further 15 people were detained on the police orders in the north-western Italian port of Genoa, a man was arrested in the southern Spanish city of Málaga, and about 30 more were held in Germany, where more than 1,000 police searched dozens of homes, offices, and stores in several states.

Belgian prosecutors said police raided more than 20 addresses as part of the three-year-long investigation, codenamed Eureka, which was run by national organised crime squads in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain with the pan-European Eurojust and Europol agencies.

In Germany, the raids focused on targets in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Thuringia, Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate, whose interior minister, Michael Ebling, hailed an “effective blow” against organised crime.

“Today sends a very clear signal: there is no place for organised crime in Europe,” Ebling said. Ten people were arrested in Rhineland-Palatinate, four in Bavaria and 15 in North Rhine-Westphalia. Two suspects from Saarland were arrested in Italy.

Police taskforces in each state were supported by special units from the German federal government and other states as well as officers from the customs and tax investigation departments, the DPA news agency reported.

Italian and Belgian authorities said the syndicate was suspected of smuggling nearly 25 tonnes of cocaine from South America to Europe in container ships arriving in Antwerp, Rotterdam and the Calabrian port of Gioia Tauro between October 2019 and January 2022.

Bavarian authorities said they had been investigating a woman and seven men, all Italian nationals aged between 25 and 48, since July 2020. The Munich-based group, was suspected of involvement in financing cocaine smuggling and money laundering.

More than €22m in illicit earnings was allegedly funnelled from Calabria to Belgium, the Netherlands and South America. German media said a network of restaurants, pizzerias, cafes and ice-cream parlours was suspected of laundering the money.

European authorities have been waging a long-running campaign against the ’Ndrangheta, one of the world’s richest organised crime groups, which has exploited its vast cocaine revenues to extend its reach across Europe and beyond and is believed to operate in more than 40 countries.

Belgian media reported that the trigger for the investigation was the discovery by police in 2019 that the owners of a pizzeria in the town of Genk, who had relatives in Munich, were allegedly in frequent contact with known ‘Ndrangheta cocaine dealers.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...across-europe-targeting-ndrangheta-mafia

"La Stampa" has revealed details from the "Eureka" mega-operation, noting that among them was an Albanian, the much-wanted Eldi Dizdari (Denis Matoshi).

He was arrested in Dubai, but it is still unclear whether the Italian authorities will continue to seek Dizdari's extradition to Florence, where part of the cocaine group recently received sentences from Italian justice, but until now Italy has no extradition agreement with the United Arab Emirates.

The investigation started with the Pelle, Strangio, Nirta, Giampaolo, Mammoliti and Giorgi gangs in 2019 after the members of the "Nirta di San Luca" gang were put under surveillance.

"During the investigations, the organization of a shipment to Brazil of a container full of weapons of war, coming from a country of the former Soviet Union, was documented."

Several organizations were created to traffic weapons and cocaine. The first reconstructed association concerns the Nirta family, "Versu" of San Luca, which was based in Brazil, represented by the fugitive Vincenzo Pasquino, captured in 2021 together with the drug lord Rocco Morabito.

The second belongs to the Mammoliti "Fischiante" family of Bovalino with 'nodes' in Puglia, Abruzzo, Lazio, Tuscany and Lombardy and who have direct contacts with South American cocaine suppliers and international traffickers such as Denis Matoshi (Eldi Dizdari), currently absconding in Dubai. The third association belongs to the Strangio "Fracascia" family linked to the Nirta-Strangio gangs involved in the Duisburg massacre of 2007. This third organization, according to investigators, had stable branches in Genk (Belgium), Munich (Germany) , Spain and Canberra (Australia).

Again Sky ECC!

LOL

The suspects communicated with cryptophones
including disabling GPS location, Google services, Bluetooth, the camera, the USB port, obscuring push notifications and blocking any other service that could create a risk of interception or localization". "Even the use of cards External SD - the document still reads - is prohibited. The calls remain active, but only in VoIP mode, therefore without the use of the GSM network and messaging, but with proprietary and encrypted applications. Despite these precautions, the contents of the chats were revealed as some foreign authorities and judicial police (in particular the Dutch, Belgian and French) have 'violated' the servers where the conversations were stored, acquiring the data contained therein".

Anti-Ndrangheta operation, dismantled the tentacles of the Mancuso and Pesce families in Lombardy

https://news.italy24.press/local/518144.html

The projection of the 'Ndrangheta beyond the Italian borders has no equal in the Italian criminal landscape. The latest report of the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate accurately "photographs" the dynamics of the historic mafia organizations, plastically highlighting the trait that characterizes the Calabrian gangs from the Cosa Nostra and Camorra groups: the transnational dimension that makes them a real network that takes the form of leadership in drug trafficking. After all, the confirmation is the activation, for some years, of the "I Can" project which brings together various police forces around the world to counter what is considered the "public enemy number 1". A "gap" of danger that is plastically found in the premises of Dia's report.
"The 'Ndrangheta - writes the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate - finds its strong point, on the one hand, in fidelity to its origins and in the solid structure on a family basis and, on the other, in the maximum flexibility and business-financial intuition that projects it outside the region of origin and also abroad… Although the statistical data reveal a significant and generalized decrease in the crime of criminal conspiracy, mafia-type association and money laundering, as far as drugs are concerned, on the other hand, there is to a decisive and growing recovery of international traffic by the Calabrian clans which have the port of Gioia Tauro as their logistical center of gravity and privileged point of entry». Dynamics that are not repeated with regard to other organizations

CLAN MONEY
The drug trafficker and the freemason: two partners for the 'Ndrangheta restaurant on the French Riviera
A penniless man from San Luca involved in millionaire trafficking. A Palmese transplanted in France and "enthusiast" of lodges. The chic restaurant and shares sold for one euro. Recycling beyond the Alps in the…



https://www.corrieredellacalabria.i...rante-della-ndrangheta-in-costa-azzurra/

Maxi operation against the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria, arrests for drugs and extortion

https://news.italy24.press/local/529736.html

Woman killed by Kalashnikov in Calabria, alleged ‘Ndrangheta crime but the “real target was her husband”


The hypothesis is that it is a crime of ‘Ndrangheta and the victim is a woman. Antonella Lopardo, 49, was shot and killed on Tuesday evening in the Ciccotonno district in Sybaris Cassano allo Ionio (Cosenza). The victim did not open the door of the house, which was armored by the way, but was shot through a window. The woman was the wife of Salvatore Maritato, an alleged exponent of the Forastefano gang of the ‘Ndrangheta and real target of the ambush. The killers, armed with a Kalashnikov and a pistol, fired when they glimpsed a shadow looming from behind a curtain through a window. And believing that it was that of Maritato, who, by the way, was in the same room, they opened fire. To complicate the situation, then, was the darkness that reigned in the area. It is to be excluded, among other things, that the killers fired knowing that the shots would have reached and killed the woman. Hence the founded hypothesis that the two assassins actually wanted to kill Salvatore Maritato. An action that investigators are closely examining motive and dynamicto. Also because the criminal personality of Salvatore Maritato, not particularly marked, would not justify, according to what emerged from the first investigations, such a blatant homicidal action. The man had been involved in the “Omnia” investigation conducted by the Catanzaro DDA

The investigations are entrusted to the Carabinieri of the Compagnia di Cassano allo Ionio and those of the Provincial Command of Cosenza, coordinated Catanzaro anti-mafia prosecutor who initiated the investigation. Investigators are now trying to reconstruct the dynamics of the facts and to clarify what the origin of the crime could be. At the moment, the hypothesis could not even be ruled out, in the case of a murder linked to organized crime, that the target of the hitman – or hitmen, there are still no certainties on this – could be the victim’s husband. Today, according to what has been learned, the Public Prosecutor’s Office will appoint the coroner to perform the autopsy on the woman’s body. At the moment, nothing is known about the statements made to the carabinieri by Maritato, that he was at home with his wife at the time the murder was committed, while the couple’s daughter was outside. Maritato would have reported that he had not seen the killers in the face, also due to the darkness that reigned in the area, and he would not have provided any information on the possible reasons for the ambush.


https://news.italy24.press/local/514185.html